Dawn and Ed Go USA

Hi Everyone!

Well, I am happy to say the that it looks like my surgery went well. I responded very good to the anesthesia so the next day I was able to walk around in the monrning without any problems and they told me I could go home. Ofcourse I stayed for all my free meals till Dawn picked me up at 18:30 ;-) For the next 4-6 weeks I have a hard collar around my neck to support it.

Here is a link to the procedure which you can find on the following website:
http://www.spine-health.com/dir/cervicalforaminotomy.html

I had 3 bulges pushing against my nerve root which caused the pain in my triceps, shoulder, back and forearm. Also my fingers were numb expect for my thumb and pinky.

Next week I'll update some more.

For the house, it's making lots of progress!

The kitchen is roughly setup and by mistake they build in a desk which was an $1800 option which we never paid for. So we are keeping it! Also, the whole house is painted and the molding (trim) and doors are all in.

They made a mistake in the basement so the drain was to far away from the heater. They are cutting it out here and it will probably be moved soon.

Private bathroom 1 upstairs. Floor and cabinet are in now. We picked a simple tile cause we thought the upgrade was too expensive. We will probably upgrade this ourselfs in the future.

Bathroom 2 upstairs. This one has a shower and toilet around the corner. Here you can see the cabinets and floor.

The loft in between the 2 rooms is looking really nice. Trim is all done and painted.

Kitchen is roughly in place. You can see the desk option on the left. We really like it cause it's extra value to the kitchen and you can put your laptop there and use the slots above to organize our mail and papers.

Picture from another angle.

I think we just love the tile here the most. It's a green tile with a modern trim. You can see the metal in the trim. We could not have done this without our designer. There is still lots of tiling to be done here and the granite on top will go in soon too.

Hi Everyone!

Well, I am happy to say the that it looks like my surgery went well. I responded very good to the anesthesia so the next day I was able to walk around in the monrning without any problems and they told me I could go home. Ofcourse I stayed for all my free meals till Dawn picked me up at 18:30 ;-) For the next 4-6 weeks I have a hard collar around my neck to support it.

Here is a link to the procedure which you can find on the following website:
http://www.spine-health.com/dir/cervicalforaminotomy.html

I had 3 bulges pushing against my nerve root which caused the pain in my triceps, shoulder, back and forearm. Also my fingers were numb expect for my thumb and pinky.

Next week I'll update some more.

For the house, it's making lots of progress!

The kitchen is roughly setup and by mistake they build in a desk which was an $1800 option which we never paid for. So we are keeping it! Also, the whole house is painted and the molding (trim) and doors are all in.

I don't have a lot of pics but here are some.

Well alot has happend since our last post. There have been quite a bit of exciting progress on the house which I will post some picture of, Ed had his 32nd birthday (photo of b-day cake below) and after Ed being in pain for a few weeks we found out that he has a herniated disc in his neck. After Ed's company moved the weekend of October 19th, where Ed was moving lots of heavy equipment his pain in his neck/upper back, which he has had on and off for sometime now, was getting worse and worse each day. He called me on his way home one day to say he was in too much pain and wanted to go into an Urgent Care clinic to see a doctor. Once I got home from work we took him in to see a doctor and after a short exam said he had bursitus in his left shoulder and gave him some pain meds and sent him home. His pain contiued into the next week and he scheduled an appointment to see a specialist. The specialist had him do some x-rays and suggested he have an MRI too, this took place on a Wednesday. On Friday, he got the results from the specialist that he had a herniated disc and referred him to see another specialist who's speciality was the spine. We went in on the following Tuesday to meet with that specialist who was suggesting surgery, but gave us other options we could try first that could help to avoid surgery. The next day, Wednesday, Ed went in and had a cortisone injection into his neck to help reduce the inflammation in the disc and help to releive the pain. On Friday of that same week, we had another appointment scheduled to see another specialist for a second opinion. This doctor was referred to us through a colleague of Dawn who made some calls and help get us in quickly. During that appointment the doctor sat down with us and talked through the situation and the different options and his recommendations based on Ed's age and symptoms. The discussion was made to go ahead and do a surgery where they will go in from the back of the neck, cut a small amount of bone out of the discs and cut away the part of the disc that is herniated and pinching the root nerve leading into his left arm. The expectations of having this done will firstly releive the pain that Ed has been in for weeks now, and stop any damage that is currently being done to that nerve. They will not be fussing the discs together as with Ed being so young, would pretty much guarantee that down the road he would have further problems and would need attention again at another level of his spine. He is scheduled to have this surgery on November 26th at 4:30pm. This week has been further pre-op appointments and preparing for the surgery next week, oh, and can't forget, Thanksgiving.

Here are some pictures to update you on the house, which we should be moved into in 5 more weeks. Going to get Dawn's parents down here to help move since Ed will be recovering and not able to lift anything.

Ed's 32nd birthday cake. Ice cream and cake, doesn't get much better than that. He was suprised.

The brick is finally done, just need to paint.

The tiling is done throughout the house. Here you can see the awsome tile we choose for around the fireplace. It turned out better than we had hoped. The baulisters on the stairs should be going up here soon. Also, all of the wall texturing has been done (hard to see in the pictures).

The kitchen floor looks soooo good. The tile we choose looks like a natural stone, but it is a ceramic tile, so maintenance is a breeze.

The green tile in the master bathroom is so pretty and the acsent piece is AWSOME!! I am so excited to get to shower here daily.

This weekend was busy in the house. We arrived around 13:30 and there was a lot going on. Outside we had 2 guys building the brick wall against the house. Inside the house there were 2 guys downstairs and 2 upstairs putting in the drywall (gips platen).

So the process here is as follows. First they frame the house, then plumbing, electrical, water and gas goes in. Insulation is blown in with a special machine that mixes the recycled paper and whatever else they put in there with water. With a hose they shoot it against the wall/frame and let it dry. After this all the drywall crew comes in and cuts the sheets of drywall and screws them to the frame.

Not to difficult all together. Anyways, this is what was going on in the house accompanied with a lot of mess, dust and load music. When the drywall is in they will 'tape' and mud it to make sure everything is smooth.

We made a lot of little video's to show you guys, cause it was hard to just have some pictures showing what was going on.

This is what the outside looks like now. Bricks going up and driveway is poured.

Guys putting up the bricks.

Dawn standing in the dust.

Drywall going up.

Walkthrough of the master bedroom and livingroom downstairs.

First upstairs bedroom, walk in closet and bathroom.

Second upstairs bedroom and walkin closet. The other bathroom you can't see.

Walking outside through the frontdoor. You can see that here in the US they use concrete as a driveway. Very different from what I am used in to Holland but it's not bad. ;-)